Defining a vision for AI-assisted goal setting and career growth at Dayforce
As Lead Product Designer, I led an initiative to rethink the goals feature across the Performance Management ecosystem, defining a future vision that connected individual growth, business outcomes, and AI-assisted guidance.
Company
Dayforce
Human Capital Management Software
My Role
Lead Product Designer
Duration
8 Weeks
The Problem
Goals are foundational to performance management, they help with setting direction, tracking performance, and supporting employee growth but the current experience treats them as isolated, static artifacts rather than a system that drives progress and outcomes.
In other words, the module functioned more like file storage than a business driver, limiting its impact on both employee growth and organizational performance.
How I Contributed
As Lead Product Designer, I worked hands-on across every phase of the project, contributing directly to research, design, and strategy, while coaching a senior designer.
- Defined and led research strategy
- Conducted competitive analysis
- Led secondary research and insight synthesis
- Analyzed customer data and usage patterns
- Facilitated cross-functional design workshops
- Synthesized findings into principles and opportunity areas
- Created wireframes, concepts, and high-fidelity designs
- Built and iterated on prototypes for concept testing
- Defined future-state experience and requirements
- Led presentations and stakeholder alignment
Who I worked With
Design
Sr Product Designer
Product
Director of Product Management
Product Managers
Engineering
Sr Software Engineering Manager
My Approach
Journey Map
Mapped the jobs to be done for managers, employees and admins based on existing research
Competitor Analysis
Audited multiple competitors to understand how they approached goals fom an individual and strategic level
Secondary Research
Researched articles and essay that discussed best practices when it comes to goal setting at an organization
Customer Data
Reviewed customer data in order to see how our users were leveraging the goals current module
This gave us a great sense of where and how goals needed to surface in the employee performance journey, what our competitors were offering their customers when it came to goals, best practices for goals and how our users were currently leveraging goals. This research allowed us to bring our ideas through the design phase and into a concept test.
What we learned
As we moved through research and concept testing, a few clear patterns emerged. These insights directly informed the direction of the experience.
Getting started is harder than it should be
People often know what they want to achieve, but struggle to turn that into a clear, structured goal. The blank page creates friction right at the moment momentum should begin.
Goals fade into the background over time
After they’re set, goals are rarely revisited in a consistent way. Without lightweight ways to stay engaged, they become something people only think about during review cycles.
It’s hard to see how work connects to the bigger picture
Most people don’t have a clear line of sight between their goals and company priorities. That disconnect makes goals feel less meaningful and harder to stay motivated around.
Growth and performance feel disconnected
Development goals and performance goals are often managed separately, even though they’re closely related. This makes it harder to understand how day-to-day work contributes to long-term growth.
Managers are left to piece the story together
By the time reviews come around, managers are often relying on memory or scattered inputs. There’s no clear, continuous view of progress over time.
Insights → Innovation
Users struggled to create meaningful goals and get started
Introduced guided goal creation with AI-assisted prompts, refinement, and suggested key results
Users often had ideas for goals but weren’t sure how to turn them into something structured or measurable. We focused on making it easier to get started without forcing a rigid format. The experience gives people a simple starting point and lets them shape and refine goals as they go.
Insights → Innovation
Goals lost relevance over time and were difficult to maintain
Designed lightweight updates and flexible editing to support ongoing progress and course correction
After goals were created, people rarely came back to update them consistently. We designed quick, lightweight ways to check in on progress without making it feel like extra work. This helped goals stay current as priorities naturally changed over time.
Insights → Innovation
Alignment between individual, team, and company goals was unclear
Surfaced contextual alignment and introduced cascading goal structures
People often didn’t have a clear view of how their work connected to team or company priorities. We brought that context directly into the goal experience so it was visible while working, not hidden in another section. This made it easier to see how individual work contributes to larger outcomes.
Insights → Innovation
Development and performance existed as separate experiences
Connected growth and performance goals to create a more unified system
Development goals and performance goals were being managed separately, which made growth feel disconnected from evaluation. We explored ways to bring them closer together so both could support a clearer view of progress. This helped create a more connected picture of how people are growing and performing.
Insights → Innovation
Managers lacked visibility and relied on manual effort during reviews
Built manager insights and integrated goals into review workflows with AI-assisted summaries
Managers often had to piece together performance information from memory or scattered notes. We surfaced key goal activity in one place so it was easier to understand what had happened over time. AI helped summarize this information so managers could focus more on decisions and conversations.
The Impact
While this work was exploratory, it directly shaped how goals will evolve within Dayforce. It created clarity, alignment, and a roadmap that teams could build against over time.
Roadmap Clarity
Established a multi-year, phased roadmap that translated a future-state vision into actionable capabilities. Gave Product and Engineering a clear path forward without losing sight of long-term direction
Organizational Alignment
Aligned Product, Engineering, and Design around a shared North Star for goals. Shifted conversations from incremental improvements to system-level thinking and long-term impact.
Strategic Repositioning
Reframed goals from a static feature into a core driver of performance, development, and business outcomes. Positioned the goals experience as foundational to the future of Talent Management within Dayforce.